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Traditional grammar basically takes its roots from the Greek school, specifically Greek
grammar. One of the distinctions in traditional school is that it for the first time ever
divided language into eight parts of speech – noun, verb, participle, article, pronoun,
preposition, adverb and conjunction, defining these in a variety of ways and outlining the
uses of each in sentences. Also, the Greeks established as a basic assumption the idea that
there was a universally correct and acceptable logic of language for man to follow in
expressing his ideas. In the medieval period, grammatical rules were held valid only
when they adhered to logical system. Hence, some logical categories were transferred to
grammar and this became grammatical categories in languages , including English. The
most outstanding representatives of traditional grammar are Henry Sweet, Otto Jesperson
and Hendrick Poutsma. These and other traditional grammarians still attempted to sort
the English language into parts of speech and syntactic functions by defining logical – or
psychological – meanings expressed by other speakers of English. For example, nouns
were the names of persons, things, they served as subjects, objects, complements, and so
on; they showed singular and plural number and had a common and genitive case.
AMERICAN LINGUISTICS
At the turn of the 20th century many linguistic scholars began to direst their attention to
the events in the communicative process that could be considered objectively. They
believed that in language study they could only examine the objectively verifiable events
of speech and the physical situations in which an utterance appears. In America, the
greatest researchers were Franz Boas and, later, Edward Sapir. Because Boas and others
sought to describe languages as they were used instead of fitting them into an already
established pattern, their field became known as descriptive linguistics. Because
descriptive methods became the analysis of the structure of English and other languages,
the term structural linguistics came into general use.
The methods of structural grammarians consist of breaking the flow of spoken language
into the smallest possible units, sorting them out, and then studying the various ways in
which these units are joined in meaning full combination. Structural grammarians often
refer to levels of analysis.
The levels of analysis are these: phonology, morphology and syntax. The grammar of a
language is a complex of systems that may be analyzed, and studied on these three levels.
Originate in late 50-s by the world-known American scholar Noam Chomsky, this theory
involved various formulas or rules for describing simple declarative English sentences
and demonstrating relationships holding between the parts of the sentences, According to
this theory, a second set of formulas and rules would be required for transforming these
into other type of sentences and structures. Since the theory seeks to set up a system that
will generate sentences, it is frequently called generative grammar. Because a part of the
theory involves transforming basic sentence types such as questions, negative and passive
sentences, it is sometimes called transformational grammar. Occasionally it is referred
to by the combined term transformational-generative grammar. The system assumes
that sentences such as
Michael didn’t paint the portrait
Did Michael paint the portrait?
The portrait was painted by Michael
What did Michael paint?
are all based on the transformation of a single sentence “ Michael painted the portrait”
The Problem of the Parts of Speech
The words of language, depending on various formal and semantic features, are
divided into grammatically relevant classes. The traditional grammatical classes of words
are called “parts of speech.”
The problem of parts of speech caused much difficulty both in general linguistics
and in the analysis of separate languages. Though it has been studied for more than 200
years, the criteria for defining parts of speech have not been worked out yet. Traditionally
grammar gave a semantic definition of parts of speech, taking into account only meaning.
However, only meaning cannot be a reliable criterion for defining parts of speech because
different parts of speech may have the same meaning and vice versa. E.g. the nouns
“books”, “tables”, “students”, denote objects and there are nouns as flight”, “movement”,
“arrival”, which do not denote objects but belong to nouns. We see that meaning cannot
be the only criterion for defining parts of speech. The structural school of linguistics does
not take into account meaning only but only form. Form alone cannot be a reliable
criterion either because many parts of speech especially in English may have the same
form, e.g. water-to water, silk (adj.) - to silk. Moreover, if we take into account only
form, then such unchangeable words as article, particle should be referred to only part of
speech.
We see that the criterion of form is not sufficient. The grammatical criterion
should be taken into account to give an adequate definition of any part of speech. By
grammatical features we mean:
a) morphological
b) syntactical
By morphological features different categories are meant. The morphological
categories of noun are the categories of number and case. By morphological categories of
adjectives we mean the category of quality (degrees of comparison).
By syntactical features of the part of speech the syntactical functions of it are
meant. The syntactical function is the most reliable criterion. Thus, the modern
conception and amended definition of part of speech should take into account all the
above mentioned criteria in complex.
The Problem of Notional and Functional (Formal) Parts of Speech
According to the view held by some grammarians, words should be divided into 2
categories on the following principle: some words denote objects of reality (these would
be notional words), whereas other words denote relations are connections between the
notional words (these would be formal words or form words).
Notional words are defined as follows: they have full lexical meaning and
independent syntactical functions in the sentence. To the notional parts of speech of the
English language belong the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the
adverb.
Formal parts of speech differ from notional ones semantically, they are words of
incomplete nominative meaning and non-self-dependent, their lexical meaning is more
general. Formal parts of speech serve either to express different relations between
notional words, they have mediatory functions in the sentence, or they specify the
meaning of the word. To the basic functional parts of speech in English belong the
article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection.
Some linguists are of the opinion that the distinction between notional and formal
parts of speech is to some extent relative. The matter is that some words belonging to
particular part of speech is occasionally perform a function differing from that which
characterized the parts of speech as a whole. E.g., in the sentence “I have some money
left” the verb “have” performs the function of the predicate, which is the usual function
of a verb in a sentence. In this case it is a notional word. But in the sentence “I have
found my briefcase” the verb “have” is an auxiliary; it is a means of forming a certain
analytical form of the verb find. So, we have one and the same verb “have” but with
different functions on the sentence.
Synthetic: eg. going – ing is the grammatical suffix, go(lexical m.) + ing (gram. m.);
speaks – s is a grammatical suffix; but in “done” we have morphophonemic alteration (as
“do” changes into part II “done”)
man – men (the phoneme changes and brings about morphophonemic alteration).
Analytical:
a) If we add “is” to “going”, this will be analytical type of word-form derivation:
“is” is considered to be a function word, and it denotes person, number of the verb
“go”; “going” is considered to be a case of affixation
b) has done – here we have function word (has) + morphophonemic alteration (done)
Non-Productive Suffixes
The non-productive suffixes are morphologically conditioned
1) the plural of nouns{-en}-[ən] (children, oxen, brethren)
2) The plural of the nouns of Greek and Latin origin {ei}-[əi]
e.g. nucleus, nuclei [njuklai]
3) {-um}-[əm] data - datum
4) suffix of the pronouns in the objective case e.g. him, them, whom
Unlike the Russian language, in English the inflexion morpheme has only 1
grammatical meaning, with the exception of -S- in the 3rd person singular Present
Indefinite: it expresses the grammatical meaning of tense, mood, person, number, and
aspect.
1) affixation
2) morphophonemic alteration
} + 3) form words
The analytical form is such a form in which lexical and grammatical meanings are
expressed by 2 different words. This is the traditional definition and the modern
linguistics introduces some changes in it because not every combination of a functional
word with a notional one makes an analytical formation. If it were so, such combination
as “in the street”, “at the table” would be considered analytical because they consist of
functional (form) word and notional words. (English prepositions never lose their lexical
meaning to that degree as to become functional words). But, however, they can hardly be
considered analytical, because in an analytical combination there is a specific distribution
of lexical and grammatical meanings. The real analytical forms are those which contain a
discontinuous morpheme that is a functional word + a notional word, which is inflected.
E.g. He is writing
lex gram.
The typical cases of discontinuous morpheme of analytical forms are those with
auxiliaries “to have” and “to be.”
{be}...{is} break{ing}
{be}…{en}, {-ed} is broken
{have}…{en}, {-ed} has broken, has changed
According to the definition of the analytically form given above the future Ind.
tense, as well as the degrees of comparison of adjectives with “more” and “most” cannot
be considered analytical formations because they have no discontinuous morpheme in
their structure. In “I shall go”- shall – gram. m., go – lex. m. The grammatical meaning is
used only once instead of truce. Besides, there is a view that “shall” and “will” have a
lexical meaning. Still, on the whole the future indefinite, as well as the mood forms are
considered to be analytical forms.
For any language it is peculiar to have both synthetic and analytical or synthetic
type of word-form derivation. Thus, English is characterized as an analytical because it
has few inflexions (ing, es, ed), with their allomorphs and a great number of analytical
formations. In analytical languages like English the word forms and grammatical
relations are expressed by means of functional words or form words and also by word
order sometimes by intonation. A language is referred to analytical or synthetic type on
the basis of the analysis of its grammatical structure which exists at the present moment
of its development, that is to say a language is analyzed synchronically without taking
into consideration its historical development. Synchronically English is an analytical
language, diachronically in different stages of its development it was either synthetically
or analytical.
Morphemics. Morph. Types of Morphs.
The study of possible combinations of phonemes is the province of morphemics.
Morphemics, as a part of morphology, is the second level of structural analysis, which
studies the morphemic compositions of English words. In morphemics we deal with
morphs, morphemes, and allomorphs.
Morphs.
The idea of morph can be better understood if we compare the following sets of
words:
clear pleasant invisible
clearly pleasure impossible
clarity please immoral
clarify displease illegal
clearness irregular
If we divide these words into smaller meaningful units, we get morphs. A morph is
a minimal meaningful unit into which a word can be divided. A morph, then, is a
combination of phones, sounds that has a meaning, and which cannot be subdivided into
smaller meaningful units. Morphs have different phonemic shapes in different phonetic
environment, distribution. Different variations of the same morph, that are similar in
phonemes and meaning, are called allomorphs. The notion of morph and morpheme is
based on the so-called allo-emic theory which was put forward by the American
descriptive linguists. In accord with this theory, lingual units are described by means of 2
types of terms – allo - terms and eme – terms. Eme – terms denote the generalized units
characterized by a certain function(meaning) in the language. Allo – terms denote the
concrete manifestation (variants) of these generalized units depending on the different
conditions. Accordingly, there exist phonologically conditioned allo – morphs and
morphologically conditioned allo – morphs. That means that the inflexion –ed has 3
allomorphs [t, d, id], which are phonologically conditioned and productive, while in
man-men there are morphologically conditioned allomorphs (here we have a replacive
morph), they are not productive. Morphs may be of 2 types – free and bound. Free
morphs are those which can be found alone in the syntagmatic line. It is very easy to
distinguish free and bound morphs if a word consist of one free and one or more bound
morphs (teacher). In many cases the same sequence of phonemes is in one case a free
morph, in another case a bound morph. E.g. undertaker, though the preposition under is a
free morph. But in the words “thunder” and “hammer”, –er is not a morph, but a part of
morph. Thus, in order to distinguish different types of morphs, a word should not be
taken alone, but in the paradigmatic system.
}
thunder
the morph “thunder” is a free morph as
thunders “thund” does not exist.
thundered
thundering
outlook
to look out
to shut out } the morph out is a free morph
to knock out
Types of Morphemes.
Morphemes may be classified according to 2 principles: functional (semantic) and
structural (positional).
According to the structural classification, morphemes are divided into free and bound. A
morpheme whose form can be a word by itself is called a free morph. A morpheme that
must be attached to another morpheme is a bound morpheme. Free morphemes are
usually roots (lexical morphemes), bound morphemes are affixes. Roots are obligatory
morphemes, affixes are non-obligatory morphemes( affixal morphemes) , eg.
un/reason/ab/ly, clear/ly. Affixes are divided into prefixes and suffixes.
According to the functional classification, morphemes may be inflectional and
derivational. Derivational morphemes are those which produce new words but not new
grammatical forms of the same word. They do not show any grammatical relations
between words. They are not studied by grammar, but by lexicology. The differences
between the two types of morphemes are as follows:
1. The use of the derivational morphemes does not influence the syntactical function
of the word in the sentence or the forms of other words connected with it in the
sentence: A good boy – A joyful boy.
2. The use of an inflectional morpheme influences the surrounding words, eg. The
boys are sitting – The boy is sitting. The boy has come – The boys have come.
The meaning of the inflectional morpheme is compulsory and the zero morpheme
has its grammatical meaning.
3. The number of derivational morphemes is not limited at least theoretically, eg:
friend, friendly, friendliness, friendship
While the number of inflectional morphemes in a word is definite, namely, no more
than two. When a word contains both morphemes, the inflectional one is placed after
the last derivational morpheme, eg. teach/ er/ s
Root deriv. Infl.
The exception is in the case when two inflectional morphemes are used in the same
word that is the case of the plural of some nouns which make their plural by means of
internal inflectional (internal – sound interchange, external 0 affixes), eg. children’s
4. The number of derivational morphemes in the language is very great, while the
number of inflectional ones is limited, namely in English. The derivational
morphemes are more productive.
The verb is the most complex part of speech. It performs the central role in the
expression of the predicative function of the sentence, in this way establishing the
connection between the situation named in the utterance and reality. The complexity of
the verb is also due to the fact that it falls into two different sets of forms: the finite forms
and the non-finite forms.
The general categorical meaning of the verb is process presented dynamically. This
holds true not only about the finite verbs, but also about the non-finite verbs. In the
sentence the finite verb performs the function of the verb-predicate, expressing the
categorical features of predication, that is, time, aspect, voice and mood.
The non-finite verb performs different functions according to its intermediary
nature (subject, object, adverbial modifier, attribute). Still, in their self-dependent use
they perform a potentially predicative function, constituting secondary predicative centres
on the sentence, e.g.
On coming home he turned on TVset.
He came home and turned on TVset.
The combining power of words in relation to other words is called their syntactical
“valency.” The valency of a word is realized when a given word is actually combined
with another word, that is its velency adjunct.
The syntactical valency falls into two types: obligatory and optional. The obligatory
valency is realized for the sake of grammatical completion of syntactical construction
(e.g. we saw a house in the distance).
The optional valency may or may not be realized depending on the concrete
information to be expressed in the sentence (we saw a house in the distance)
The notions of verbal transitivity and objectivity should be also considered.
Verbal transitivity is the ability of the verb to take a direct object. Verbal objectivity
is the ability of the verb to take any object, be it direct, or prepositional. Transitive verbs
are opposed to intransitive verbs; objective verbs are opposed to non-objective verbs
(subjective verbs).
Besides, there are also bicomplemetative objective verbs such as
1) taking direct and indirect object (addressee object), to give, to bring, to show.
2) taking 2 direct objects: to teach, to ask, to excuse, to forgive.
3) taking 2 prepositional objects (to argue, to consult)
4) taking a prepositional object and an addressee object (to remind of, to tell about)
The verb is the only part of speech in Modern English that has developed a complex
morphological system based on a series of categories. In this respect it may be said that
the verb plays a central role in the morphology of English. The complicated character of
the verbal system has given rise to a lot of controversies about the structural formation of
the finite verb categories.
The problem of the grammatical categories is connected with a number of
difficulties, which is accounted for, in the first place, by the analytical character of the
modern English language, and also by a great number of unmarked homonymous forms.
While analyzing the verbal categories, very often difficulties arise whether to consider
certain constructions as analytical forms of the verb or not, or whether one and the same
unmarked form of the verb represents different forms (categories) which are
homonymous or one form having different meanings (the problem of homonymy and
polysemy).
In connection with the study of the verbal expression of time and aspect, the great
controversy is going on as to the temporal or aspective nature of the verbal forms of the
indefinite, continuous, perfect, and perfect-continuous series.
There are lots of mutually opposing views regarding both the content and the
number of the voice. The problem of the subjective mood may be called one of the most
difficult problems in the theory of grammar.
Another difficulty arises in connection with the forms of the English verb, having
no positive morphological markers (with zero inflections). As compared with other
languages (synthetic, such as Russian or American), the number of such forms in English
is very great. Let’s consider as an example the paradigm of the conjugation of the verb,
present tense, indicative mood and imperative mood.
Thus, we see that out of 7 forms of the English verb, if we consider that Imperative
mood is represented by 2 homonymous forms – singular and plural, 6 or 7 forms are the
forms with zero inflections, i.e. in the system of the present tense, indicative mood and
imperative mood there exist 7 homonymous zero inflections:
The verb system has come under the most intensive analysis undertaken by
contemporary linguistics. In the course of these studies the oppositional nature of the
categorical structure of the verb was formulated. The paradigmatic system of the
expression of verbal functional semantics was competently described. the categorical
system of the English verb is based on oppositional criteria worked by Soviet and foreign
scholars. The verbal system includes the categories of person, number, time (tense),
aspect, perfect, voice, and mood. Only finite verbs can have these 7 verbal categories.
E.g. He speaks good English.
1. aspect – cont.
2. perfect – non-perfect
3. voice – active voice
Verb. The Category of Tense
All the terminative verbs in the common aspect have the meaning of habitual
recurrent general action. E.g. He gets up at 6. While all the durative verbs used in the
common aspect have the meaning of an action not limited by any time limits. E.g. He
loves children.
On the other hand, the use of the durative verbs in the continuous aspect is
restricted, because they can be used in this aspect only with emphatic force. E.g. You are
always finding faults with me. She is constantly wanting money from him.
It is clear that these are the cases of the unusual use of the continuous form. They
do not fit in the definition of the continuous form. In these examples the continuous form
has the peculiar shade of meaning – the emphatic meaning and the action is represented
as going on without interruption and that gives the sentence additional, emotional
colouring. In these cases the action is represented as if never ceasing, that is to say it is
meant to be unlimited by time. These are the cases when the continuous meaning is
neutralized. E.g. He is constantly grumbling.
These are exaggerated statements where the form of the continuous aspect is used
with emotional shade of meaning. This is the so-called stylistic application of the
continuous forms. The stylistic effect is brought about due to the descriptive value of the
continuous forms. The fallowing fact should be mentioned. In all books on practical
grammar it is mentioned that the statal verbs denoting abstract relation (to belong, to
consist, to possess), verbs denoting mental activity (to know, to understand) and verbs
denoting sense perception or emotion (to see, to hear, to fear) are not used in the
continuous form.
E.g. It was as if she was seeing herself for the first time
Don’t shout, I’m hearing you quite well.
Yet, such use of the continuous form is quite common in modern English, quite
appropriate. In such cases the action is interpreted as a momentary action and the
continuous form shows that the action is taking place for the some time and is not a mere
a statement of the fact. This application is also due to the descriptive character of the
continuous form. The continuous aspect of the link verb “to be” shows a person’s
behavior in a concrete situation, but not his general character.
E.g. I think, you are being unjust (at this moment).
You are being damn and fool.
The continuous aspect shows that it is not a permanent characteristic feature, but it
is peculiar only to the particular case.
E.g. He is being honest (in general, he is not honest, but now he is honest).
I’ll be seeing him tomorrow.
The linguistic implication of these uses of the continuous is indeed very peculiar. It
amounts to de – neutralizing the usually neutralized continuous. Here we have an
emphatic reduction of the continuous serving the purpose of speech expressiveness.
For a long time the continuous aspect was not recognized at all as a separate
grammatical category and all the continuous forms were treated as different tenses of the
continuous group.
The evolution of views on connection with interpretation of the continuous forms
has undergone three stages.
The traditional analysis placed them among the tense-forms of the verb, defining
them as expressing an action going on simultaneously with some other action. This
temporal interpretation of the continuous was developed in the works of H. Sweet and O.
Jesperson. In point of fact, the continuous usually goes with a verb which expresses a
simultaneous action, but the timing of the action is not expressed by the continuous as
such.
A further demonstration of the essentially non-temporal meaning of the continuous
is its regular use in combination with the perfect, i.e. its use in the verb-form perfect
continuous.
At the second stage of the interpretation of the continuous, the form was understood
as rendering a blend of temporal and aspective meanings. This view was developed by I.
P. Ivanova.
The combined temporal-aspective interpretation of the continuous introduced
comprehensively grounded basis for the idea of aspective meaning in the grammatical
system of English. Besides, it demonstrated the actual connection of time and aspect in
the integral categorical semantics of the verb.
Thus, latter phase of study, initiated in the works of A. I. Smirnistsky, V. N.
Yartseva and B. A. Ilysh, was developed future by B. S. Khaimovich and B. I.
Rogocskaya and was most comprehensively formed by L. S. Barkhudarov.
The category of mood is the most controversial category of the verb. The relation of
this category to other categories, the number of moods – all this has received different
presentations of this category given by different scholars seems to be the same with slight
modifications. Mood is the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the relation of the
action denoted by the verb to reality from speaker’s point of view. In other words, the
category of mood expresses the character of connection between the process denoted and
the actual reality either presenting the process as a fact that really happened, happens or
will happen or treating it as imaginary phenomenon, that is to say that subject of a
hypothesis, speculation, desire.
Mood expresses the outer interpretation of the action as a whole, the introduction of
it as actual or imaginary.
The relation of the action to reality is otherwise termed “modality.” Thus, mood and
modality are closely interrelated but not identical. Mood is a narrower notion. Modality is
a wider notion and it may be expressed not only by grammatical means (mood), but also
by lexical means (modal verbs, modal words, and phrases, parenthetical clauses and by
intonation).
Indicative Mood
The Indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it is the most
developed system including all the grammatical categories of the verb. Semantically it is
a “fact” mood/the terminology of H. Swell). It serves to present an action as a fact of
reality. It is the most objective and the least subjective of all the moods. It conveys
minimum personal attitude to the fact. This is particularly manifested in sentences of the
type “Magnet attracts iron.”
It should be noted that the mention of the speaker or writer who represents the
action as real is most essential. If we limit ourselves to saying that the Indicative mood is
used to represent real actions we should arrive at the conclusion that whatever is stated by
anybody in a sentence with the predicate in the indicative mood is always true. But the
speaker may be mistaken or else telling a deliberate lie. The point is that Grammar does
not deal with the truth or untruth of the statement, from the meaning of this category is
used by the speaker as the meaning of correspondence to reality.
Some doubt about the meaning of the indicative mood may arise if we take into
account its use in conditional sentences of the type. E.g. “I’ll speak to him if I meet him.”
In this sentence the action denoted by the verb in the Indicative mood is represented not
as a fact, but merely as a possibility (I may meet him and may not). However, the
conditional meaning is expressed by the conjunction “if” and the meaning of the verb as
such remains.
There are essential peculiarities distinguished the imperative mood and they have
given rise to doubts as to whether the imperative can be referred to moods at all. This
needs a comment on what we mean by mood. A serious difficulty connected with
Imperative is the absence of any specific morphological characteristics, since all verbs
including the verb “to be” it coincides with the Infinitive. This fact gave some scholars a
right to exclude the imperative from the system of moods. Besides, in all verbs except “to
be” the form of the imperative coincides with the Present Indicative except 3rd person
singular.
E.g. Go! Be quiet! (It coincides with the indicative. Here we have grammatical
homonymy). If we accept the definition of mood given above there would be no ground
to deny that the imperative is a mood. The problem is what mood it is, direct or oblique.
M. Ganshina and M. Vasilevskaya consider that the imperative is a direct mood.
The scholars who object to this viewpoint consider that it is an oblique mood, since its
meaning is not that of a real action desired by the speaker. This can be easily shown by
transformations.
E.g. be off→ I demand that you be off.
Do be careful with the paper→ My request is htat you be (should be) careful.
According to M. Bloch, the imperative may be looked upon as a variety of the
subjective.
Though the system of the imperative mood does not contain person distinction, it
cannot be said that there is no meaning of person implied in the form of this mood. On
the contrary, the speaker addresses his order or request to a definite person, the second
person. This makes it unnecessary to use the subject expressed by the pronoun. (Usually
indefinite or personal pronoun is used)
E.g. Somebody switch on the light.
You get out of here!
Don’t you do it!
Some scholars are of the opinion that modern English possesses analytical forms of
the imperative mood for the first and third persons built up with the help of the
semantically weakened, unstressed “let” + pronoun in the objective case. E.g. Let him
come. Let us go there.
G. Vorontsova give a detailed analysis of these constructions to prove that they are
analytical forms of the Imperative. The objections to this viewpoint are:
1) If we admit the existence of the analytical imperative, we will have to admit that
the subject may be expressed by a pronoun in the objective case.
2) The basic meaning of the imperative is to urge, to induce the listener to fulfill an
action denoted by the notional verb. The construction with “let” is devoid of this basic
meaning of the imperative, the meaning of inducement, especially in sentences of the
type. “Let me do it” (kind of suggestion)
3) The imperative mood forms its negative forms with the auxiliary “do” + not. E.g.
“Don’t go there”, “Let him not go there” (the second is a suggestion, advice).
All these and the fact that the verb “let” has its own lexical meaning (though weak)
show – that “let” has not established itself as a morpheme of the analytical imperative
mood. Consequently, the analytical imperative does not exist in English.
If we start from the means of expressing moods we shall get something like this
system.
The course of grammar of the English language is divided into two basic sections:
morphology and syntax. Morphology, as it is already known, studies the grammatical
forms of words, parts of speech. Syntax, which is sometimes called “elder brother of
morphology” (Tenier, “Основы структурного синтаксиса”) deals with sentences and
combinability of words, classification and combinability of phrases. Thus, there are two
units of syntax – the phrase – the minimal unit and the sentence – the highest unit and
correspondingly two levels of syntax – the level of phrase, which is also called minor
syntax, and the level of sentence, also called major syntax.
According to a modern point of view, the relation between morphology and
syntax is not always so simple as that. In this view we should distinguish between 2
angles of research: 1) the elements dealt with; from this point of view grammar consists
of morphology and syntax. 2) the way these elements are studied; from this point of view
there exists paradigmatic are syntagmatic study. Thus, we get 4 divisions:
1) paradigmatic morphology (vertical relations)
2) syntagmatic morphology
3) paradigmatic syntax
4) syntagmatic syntax (horizontal relations)
Of these 4 items the first and the fourth require no special explanation; the two
other items require special comment.
1) Syntagmatic morphology is the study of the combinability of parts of
speech. E.g. I can go (can is used only with infinitive, we cannot use it with
other parts of speech but infinitive). Whenever we speak of parts of speech
we remain within the sphere of morphology. Thus, the statement that an
adjective is used to modify a noun, an adverb – to modify a verb is a
statement of syntagmatic morphology.
2) Paradigmatic syntax is a part of grammatical theory which did not
appear in the traditional systems.
E.g. My friend has come.
Has my friend come?
My friend will have come.
My friends have come.
My friends have not come.
All these sentences are variations of one and the same sentence – the paradigm of
the sentence. Still, it should be mentioned, that from the point of view of
communications, “My friend has come” and “My friends have not come” are different
sentences as they express different combination.
Equipollents
Here both “my colleagues” and “I” can be used subject of the sentence separately
taken.
In “My colleague will be present” my colleague is not equipollent as “my” cannot
be used as a subject in the sentence.
2) Combinations formed by words which are not syntactically equal, one of them
plays the role of modifier to the other. These combinations are termed dominantional.
The function of the adjunct is different from that of the whole phrase.
Attribute Subject
According L. Bloomfield, such phrases are endocentric (containing a head-word
or contra). The endocentric group has the same distribution as one of its members. In
terms of substitution, the head word of the endocentric group functions in the same way
as the whole phrase.
Subordination (junction) is a type of syntactical connection when the syntactical
function of the whole group is different from the syntactical function of one of the IC-s
(immediate constituents) that is adjunct. E.g.
A tall boy came in.
A tall came in.
A boy came in.
The IC the syntactical function of which coincides with the syntactical function of
the whole group is the head; The IC the syntactical function of which is different from the
syntactical function of the whole group is the adjunct of the phrase.
The syntagmatic relation between the IC-s is dominational, that’s to say the IC-s
are syntactically unequal, one of them dominates the other. In the substitution test the
deletion of one of the IC-s (the adjunct) should not lead to the change of the syntactical
connection between other words in the same sentence. E.g.
He is a good boy.
He is good (the structure of the sentence is changed).
He is a boy (the main structure of the sentence is kept).
The predicative connection of words uniting the subject and the predicate (which
is also called nexus) builds up the basis of the sentence. The syntagmatic relation
between the IC-s is domination. But this domination is reciprocal, the subject dominates
the predicate is determining the reason of the predication, while the predicate dominates
the subject determining the event predication, that’s to say ascribing to a person some
action, state or quality. The difference in the meaning between the elements of
predication underlines the mutually opposite direction of domination – thus mutual
dependence – and exposes its dialectic essence. The domination of the subject over the
predicate is exposed in agreement (the predicate agrees with the subject in number and
person). E.g.
I come. He comes.
The predicate domination over the subject is demonstrated by the correspondent
noun phrase which places the predicate in the position of the headword and the subject –
in the position of the adjunct. E.g. The train arrived → The arrival of the train.
Alongside of fully predicate groups of the subject and the finite verb-predicate,
there exist in language partially predicative grouping – formed by a combination of a
non-finite verbal form with a substantive element. Such are infinitival, gerundial and
participial constructions. Comp. The pupil understands his mistake (mutual domination)
→ the pupil’(s) understanding his mistake → the pupil understanding his mistake.
In such predicative constructions, which are also called semi-predicative or
potentially-predicative, there is no formal domination of the subject (no agreement), but
the two directions of domination remain by virtue of the very predicative nature of the
syntactic connection. Thus, predication, as a type of syntactical connection, exists in 2
forms – complete predication (primary predication), incomplete predication (secondary,
or semi-predication, or potential predication, or partial predication).
The Phrase
In modern grammar theory there exist different approaches to the definition of the
phrase – the lowest unit of syntax. One of the widest definitions is suggested by Prof.
B.A. Iliysh: “Any combination of two or more words, which is a grammatical unit but not
an analytical form of some words, is a phrase”. According to this definition the
constituent element of a phrase may belong to any part of speech (both notional and
functional). Syntagmatically they may be notional phrases (cold water) , formative
phrases (in the garden), functional phrases (in reference to). Prof. L. S. Barkhudarov
gives a narrower definition of a phrase. According his point of view, a phrase is a group
of two or more syntactically connected notional words which is not an analytical from
and not a sentence. From this point of view in the sentence “When John and Bill wake in
the morning, they opened the window”, we may single out the following three phrases:
a) woke in the morning
b) John and Bill
c) Opened the window
The combinations “John and Bill woke”, “they opened” are sentences, “in the
morning”, “the window” are not phrases as one of the ICs is a functional word.